Background/Purpose: The transition from pediatric to adult rheumatology requires coordinated communication between care teams to ensure patient engagement and continuity of care. Pediatric providers may document transition readiness and final pediatric visits, but there is limited evaluation of whether the pediatric team formally acknowledges successful receipt of care by adult providers after transfer. Acknowledgement of transfer may reduce information loss, clarify provider responsibilities, prevent loss to follow up, and serve as a model for quality improvement within transition workflows. Recognizing the transition completion gap, our team sought to assess how often transitioned patients had documented acknowledgment of the first adult rheumatology visit by their former pediatric provider in the electronic health record (EHR), signaling completion of the transition process.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective chart review of patients who transitioned from pediatric to adult rheumatology care between 2017–2024. The patient list was compiled by the pediatric rheumatology transition team for lead using established tracking logs. We first identified patients who had a documented adult rheumatology visit (Phase 1). We subsequently determined whether their pediatric providers acknowledged the completed transition within the EHR, either through a note or electronic message (Phase 2). Data were managed in Microsoft Excel and analyzed descriptively to evaluate the frequency of documented transition completion.

Results: Of 199 identified patients, 31 (16%) transitioned care internally to an adult rheumatologist embedded in our practice. Of the remaining 168 patients, 143 (85%) completed at least one adult’s rheumatology visit. Among these, 30 (21%) had a corresponding acknowledgment note or electronic message from their pediatric provider confirming receipt of care in the adult setting. Overall, only 30/199 (15%) patients had fully documented transition completion meeting both criteria.

Conclusion: Pediatric provider acknowledgment following healthcare transfer is inconsistently documented. This process gap highlights the need for standardized EHR workflows to alert pediatric teams when former patients establish adult care. Incorporating automated EHR notifications, auditing missed appointments, and creating embedded acknowledgment templates may streamline documentation, reduce provider burden, and potentially prevent gaps in care during the critical transition period. Future directions include correlating acknowledgment completion with patient transition outcomes and identifying modifiable predictors of successful transition continuity.

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ACR Meeting Abstracts - https://acrabstracts.org/abstract/assessing-completion-of-healthcare-transition-a-retrospective-review-of-provider-acknowledgment-following-pediatric-rheumatology-transfer/